2 Responses to New Tactics for Yucatan in the “Dengue Battle”

A few years ago I read about the inception of this method, as first practiced in Australia. So I sent that report to YucatanLiving, where it was published. I like to think that sharing information may have had something to do with this current project being conducted in Yucatan. (Mind you, I claim no credit, as I have no facts.) But sharing is good!

And I love the name of the Minister of Health: Jorge Mendoza Mezquita! Right up there with a doctor of gynecology my wife once worked with: Dr Finger. (¿Better he had gone into hand surgery?) ~eric. MeridaGOround. c o m

Sorry, busy, don’t have time to fully read the science articles. I do want to report an anecdote on Dengue. In October, 2012, my niece in Cordoba had dengue, a very grave case of it. I was in the US for my annual visit and was a bit nervous. I did not accept the fact that she was okay until I personally came back and gave her the customary uncle kisses.

October 2013, her aunt who lives next door had dengue. But, the aunt was paralyzed. I did extensive searching, and found a couple of medical papers which indicated that was often caused by low blood potassium levels, and often was cleared up by potassium i.v.’s Normal levels, I can’t even copy the units, run around 4 or 5, and as it approaches 2.5 they are in trouble.

I passed on this information, but though a few days later, she was mobile again, I got no feedback on the potassium levels.

I discussed it with my pharmacist friend. She said, yes, they always have potassium i.v/s in stock, because not everyone can tolerate glucose, such as diabetics.

I also encountered a paper which said on Haiti they had 4 cases of paralysis with cholera, also possibly linked to low potassium levels, and 3 of them died, because the paralysis hit the diaphragm and they couldn’t breathe.

I tried to tell the doctor, the husband of my pharmacist friend. He was very rude, wouldn’t even listen, though we have supposedly been friends for 15 years. He said it was so rare, maybe one in 23,000 cases of dengue, that he wasn’t even going to read the paper.

Alas, in the same church my niece’s aunt attends, with 40 members, two of them had paralysis at the same time.

One in 23,000 cases would mean not many cases of paralysis in the entire state of Vera Cruz each year. Two cases in one small church at the same time would really stretch the imagination.

I have wondered if this is another case of Salubridad dropping the ball. The pharmacist told me a few months before the Swine flu made world news that they were getting a strange grippa, a respiratory problem in small children, unlike anything they had ever seen. Salubridad never did pick up on it, and Mexico gots its warning on Swine Flu from California who was seeing it on Mexicans just coming in.

Alas, no one anywhere kept a swab on that respiratory illness, so we will never know if it was swine flu or not. I know a cousin had me drive them to a private hospital an hour or two away. Their baby had to be aspirated every hour or two. She was in very grave condition.